Dear Colleague:

I write on behalf of a number of colleagues from Catholic Colleges and Universities to invite you to have your institution join a new organization focusing on research on Catholic Higher Education: 

Catholic Higher Education Research Cooperative (CHERC).

CHERC is an outgrowth of the meetings of institutional researchers and other interested parties from Catholic Colleges and Universities from across the country, which have been held at Villanova University on the Monday of Holy Week for each of the past nine years.   
As an attendee of one of the recent annual meetings, you know that the topics covered at these sessions have included such traditional institutional research issues as alumni surveys, institutional quality and assessment, strategic planning, external reporting, faculty workload and productivity analysis as well as subjects more closely related to our unique missions as faith-based institutions including examining mission and identity in Catholic higher education, assessing the mission and values of church-related higher education, and employing institutional research to explore mission, values and spirituality.  These meetings also have provided a wonderful forum for networking and frank, open-ended discussion.

In addition to the sessions described above, institutional researchers from Catholic Colleges and Universities have gathered from time to time at special interest group meetings at the AIR Forum and the Annual NEAIR Conference and have collaborated on some modest research endeavors.

For the past few years, a number of individuals have been discussing the possibility of creating a more formal group to expand these activities.  In fact, you may recall that this past January, we conducted a survey to ascertain the level of interest in creating such an organization. Responses to the survey were received from 91 individuals representing 75 Catholic colleges and universities and two related organizations. The results were overwhelmingly favorable in terms of support for creating this type of organization.
Members of the informal planning group over the past few years leading the development of CHERC have included Julie Alig from Saint Anselm’s, Phyllis Fitzpatrick from Fairfield, Don Gillespie from Fordham, Mark Gunty from Notre Dame, John Kelley from Villanova, Linda Junker from Mount Saint Mary’s, Joe Pettit from Georgetown, and Anne Marie Stamford from Scranton, as well as others.

The initial objectives for CHERC include:

1. Developing and maintaining a web site with data and information on Catholic Higher Education
   
2. Developing and maintaining a list serve for those interested in research on Catholic Higher Education
     
3. Conducting collaborative research projects
      
4. Sharing survey instruments and question sets on issues germane to Catholic Higher Education
      
5. Analyzing data from existing survey efforts (e.g., CIRP, CSS, CSEQ, NSSE, etc.) to examine the impact of Catholic Higher Education
      
6. Continuing to host an annual meeting

To date, the fees collected to underwrite the cost of the annual conference have been sufficient to support our informal operations.  However, now that we are forming an organization and expanding our list of activities, it is necessary to institute a modest annual, institutional membership fee.  Therefore, we are asking that each institution interested in participating in CHERC for the 2008 calendar year pay a fee of $100.00.  Checks may be made out to Villanova University.  Villanova will maintain CHERC’s funds in a custodial account.

We hope that you will join us in this exciting endeavor.  At this point, we are only writing to representatives from those institutions that have attended either or both of our two most recent annual meetings.  Once we have some of these institutions on board, we will write to the remaining Catholic Colleges and Universities inviting them to join these schools in CHERC’s initial membership.   

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  In addition, you will want to remember to mark your calendar for next year’s conference which will be held at Villanova on March 29 & 30, 2009.  I look forward to seeing you then and in the meantime wish you all the best for a peaceful and joyous Advent and Christmas season.

Sincerely,

James F. Trainer, Ph.D.
Director of Planning and Assessment